Day 150- Georges Mathieu- Screaming Your Soul

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It’s Day 150 and I have my last improv show tonight for a while. They don’t have the performance class throughout the summer so I’ll probably just be taking the advanced/intermediate improv which I enjoy as well. It’s fun to meet new people, but I’ll miss performing. My chest and back are achy today so hopefully after a nap I’ll feel refreshed and not gross tonight. Anyways, I love the paintings of my artist today so join me in honoring Georges Mathieu today! I took his short bio below from wikipedia and then found another bio as well.

Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu

Georges Mathieu (January 27, 1921 – June 10, 2012) was a French painter in the style of Tachisme and/or Lyrical Abstraction.

Mathieu was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international

Georges Mathieu

reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively.

Despite his unconventional technique, he considered himself an historical painter working with abstract subject matter. His paintings are related to American Lyrical Abstraction and to Art informel as well.

Georges Mathieu

Mathieu lacked a formal art education. In 1947 he was working for American Express in Paris, France and rented a chambre de bonne near the Palais Luxembourg. There he executed a number of large canvases with a black background on which he painted colored scrolls, whorls and other shapes.

He subsequently refined his technique, using a white background on which he painted

Georges Mathieu

simple geometrical forms, most often a single line in color. In the 1950s he exhibited fifty of these canvases at the Leicester Galeries in London.

French painter, Georges Mathieu gained an international reputation in the 1950’s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively. Despite his unconventional technique, he considers himself a historical painter working with abstract subject matter.

Post-war painter, Georges Mathieu was born in Boulogne sur Mer, in 1921, and received a bachelor’s degree in English. After the war he went to work in Paris, working in public relations for the marine company LAST American Lines.

Mathieu began to paint non-figuratively around 1942, and in 1947 his abstract work began to attract attention due to the application of paint

Georges Mathieu

directly from the tube.

Georges Mathieu

This new abstraction, described as: “lyric, informal or “tachiste” (having spots and blurs), ignored the traditions and the rules that existed previously. Mathieu was the first to bring this new style to the School of Paris before 1950 and also to the painters of the School of New York.

His position at the U.S Lines, allowed him to keep in touch with the movements of the

Georges Mathieu

vanguard New York art scene, thus becoming aware of Action Painting. He became aware of lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism. He began to show at galleries around 1946, at the Sixth Hall of the Minors for 30 years, Galerie Des Beaux-Arts of Paris, and in 1950 he held his first solo exhibition at the Galerie René Drouin, Paris.

I really enjoyed today’s painting. It’s another piece that I want to try in bigger form. I did get some huge canvases so maybe I will. From the pictures I saw, it looked like he painted on enormous canvases! I hope you enjoy my piece and I will see you tomorrow on Day 151! Best, Linda